The Australian government says Facebook has agreed to allow Australians to resume viewing or sharing news content after the two sides reached an agreement over a proposal to make the digital giants pay domestic news outlets for their content. The two sides announced the deal Tuesday just hours before the Australian Senate was set to begin debate on a set of amendments to a bill that was passed just last week by the lower House of Representatives. The amendments include a two-month mediation period that would give social media giants and news publishers extra time to broker agreements before they are forced to abide by the government’s provisions. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg issued a joint statement with Communications Minister Paul Fletcher saying Facebook will restore Australian news outlets on the social media platform “in the coming days.”An illustration image shows a phone screen with the “Facebook” logo and Australian newspapers in Canberra, Australia, Feb. 18, 2021.Facebook regional director William Easton issued a statement saying the company was “satisfied” the Australian government agreed to the changes and guarantees “that address our core concerns about allowing commercial deals that recognize the value our platform provides to publishers relative to the value we receive from them.” Facebook blocked Australian news content last week despite ongoing negotiations with Canberra. The websites of several public agencies and emergency services were also blocked on Facebook, including pages that include up-to-date information on COVID-19 outbreaks, brushfires and other natural disasters. Australian media companies have seen their advertising revenue increasingly siphoned off by big tech firms like Google and Facebook in recent years. Google had also threatened to block news content if the law were passed, even warning last August that Australians’ personal information could be “at risk” if digital giants had to pay for news content. But the company has already signed a number of separate agreements with such Australian media giants as the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media.
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Month: February 2021
NASA Releases Mars Landing Video: ‘Stuff of Our Dreams’
NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface. The quality was so good — and the images so breathtaking — that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along. “It gives me goose bumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team. The Perseverance rover landed last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference. The surface of Mars directly below NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover is seen using the Rover Down-Look Camera in a combination of images acquired Feb. 22, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via Reuters)”These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams,” said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team. Six off-the-shelf cameras were devoted to entry, descent and landing, looking up and down from different perspectives. All but one camera worked. The lone microphone turned on for landing failed, but NASA got some snippets of sound after touchdown: the whirring of the rover’s systems and wind gusts. Flight controllers were thrilled with the thousands of images beamed back — and also with the remarkably good condition of the rover. It will spend the next two years exploring the dry river delta and drilling into rocks that may hold evidence of life 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. The core samples will be set aside for return to Earth in a decade. NASA added 25 cameras to the $3 billion mission — the most ever sent to Mars. The space agency’s previous rover, 2012’s Curiosity, managed only jerky, grainy stop-motion images, mostly of terrain. Curiosity is still working. So is NASA’s InSight lander, although it’s hampered by dusty solar panels. This combination of images from video made available by NASA shows steps in the descent of the Mars Perseverance rover as it approaches the surface of the planet, Feb. 18, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)Deputy project manager Matt Wallace said he was inspired several years ago to film Perseverance’s harrowing descent when his young gymnast daughter wore a camera while performing a backflip. Watching the video “I think you will feel like you are getting a glimpse into what it would be like to land successfully in Jezero Crater with Perseverance,” he said. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said the video and also the panoramic views following touchdown “are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.” The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead, according to the engineers. There’s a more immediate benefit. “I know it’s been a tough year for everybody,” said imaging scientist Justin Maki, “and we’re hoping that maybe these images will help brighten people’s days.”
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Ebola Expert Calls for Vigilance Amid Outbreaks
With the Ebola virus flaring in the Democratic Republic of Congo and a new outbreak in Guinea, Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum is worried.“This is a great concern for us, especially since the COVID and Ebola crises are occurring” simultaneously, said Muyembe, who manages DRC’s National Institute of Biomedical Research and is coordinating his country’s responses to both infectious diseases.A renowned expert on the Ebola virus, the 78-year-old microbiologist sees it as a more urgent threat than COVID-19 in his country. Meanwhile, the pandemic’s official Locations of current Ebola virus disease outbreaks in Guinea and DRC as of Feb. 22, 2021In past Ebola outbreaks, anywhere from 25% to 90% of infected people died, the World Health Organization reports. By comparison, the overall mortality risk of COVID-19, a respiratory disease, is 1% or less, but rises with age and risk factors, according toThe Congolese government’s Ebola response coordinator, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, visits a new Doctors Without Borders Ebola treatment center in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Aug. 6, 2019. (Reuters)New tools to combat EbolaSome positive developments in Ebola prevention and treatment emerged, Muyembe noted, citing vaccines and drug therapies.“We have the tools to vaccinate and to treat the sick. Thus, we break the chain of transmission, and the virus can go back into the forest,” he said.In late 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Ervebo, a one-shot vaccine. Last July, the European Union approved Zabdeno, with a two-dose regimen.Gains also have been made in treatment. Late last year, the FDA approved two therapies for treating Ebola infections: the antibody cocktail Inmazeb and the human monoclonal antibody Ebanga. The DRC institute worked with the U.S. National Institutes of Health to develop the latter, Muyembe said, noting that his team revisited promising research that Western partners had asked them to set aside more than a decade ago.The institute has sent some of the treatment to North Kivu, Muyembe said, and “we will also send some shipments to Guinea to treat the sick. This is something we can do in the framework of African solidarity to help our friends in Guinea.”He added that Congolese health experts also would be sent there.Distribution of the Ebola vaccine is targeted, not widespread, as is planned for COVID-19 vaccines. In part, that is because Ebola spreads through direct contact; COVID can spread from an infected person through droplets that hang in the air and are harder to avoid.“If you’re spending money manufacturing vaccine and getting it into the arms of every person in a given country, that’s money that’s not being spent on something else that’s way more common, like (the) measles vaccine, or even other non-health-related issues,” Tiffany Harris, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, told VOA. Raising awarenessMuyembe made a point of getting a shot in front of news cameras as soon as the Ebola vaccine was available. He will do the same with a COVID-19 vaccine, he said, to bolster public awareness and to allay suspicions of a Western ploy to sterilize or otherwise harm Africans.Misinformation is “amplified here in Africa,” Muyembe said. “It is up to us to convey the true messages of peace and security” to get people “to accept the COVID vaccine. But it’s not easy.”Health authorities have ramped up public awareness campaigns in Ebola-affected areas, joining much broader COVID-19 awareness campaigns on radio, social media and other platforms throughout Africa.“You can end an epidemic, but you cannot end the virus,” Muyembe said of Ebola. “… It can come back, so we have to be vigilant.”Adam Phillips of VOA’s English to Africa Service contributed to this report. Photos uploaded to Voltron:DRCONGO-HEALTH-EBOLA-VACCINATION (AFP 000_1MH6OU)Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum gets inoculated with an Ebola vaccine November 22, 2019, in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. (AFP) (Ebola-Muyembe-Reuters)Congolese government’s Ebola response coordinator Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum visits the new MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Ebola treatment center in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 6, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner Map:Suggested revised text for caption: – Instead of: Current EVD outbreaks in Guinea and DRC – Suggested revise: Locations of current Ebola virus disease outbreaks in Guinea and DRC as of Feb. 22, 2021 On the map itself, can we replace Katwa either with North Kivu or say Katwa, North Kivu
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Britain Outlines Lockdown Exit as Vaccines Show ‘Spectacular’ Results
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans Monday to begin easing coronavirus lockdown measures. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Johnson credited Britain’s rapid vaccination program for allowing the country to begin reopening — amid growing scientific evidence that the vaccines will help to bring the global pandemic under control. Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Norway Museum: Munch Wrote ‘Madman’ Sentence on ‘The Scream’
Norway’s National Museum says a small, barely visible sentence written with a pencil on Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece “The Scream” was penned by the Norwegian painter himself.The painting, which shows a waif-like figure cradling its head in its hands with its mouth agape, has become a global icon for the expression of human anxiety. The sentence — “can only have been painted by a madman” — was scribbled in the top left-hand corner.The painting is being prepared to be exhibited at the new National Museum of Norway that is set to open in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, in 2022. In this connection, the canvas has undergone research and conservation.”The writing is without a doubt Munch’s own,” Mai Britt Guleng, curator at the National Museum, said in a statement Monday, adding it was compared to the painter’s diaries and letters.”The handwriting itself, as well as events that happened in 1895, when Munch showed the painting in Norway for the first time, all point in the same direction,” Guleng said.The writing on the canvas was added after Munch had completed the painting but for years it has been a mystery, the museum said in a statement. Speculation has ranged from it being an act of vandalism by an outraged viewer to something written by Munch himself.Guleng said the inscription was likely made “in 1895, when Munch exhibited the painting for the first time.”The painting at the time caused public speculation about Munch’s mental state. During a discussion night when the artist was present, a young medical student questioned Munch’s mental health and claimed his work proved he was not sound.”It is likely that Munch added the inscription in 1895, or shortly after, in response to the judgment on his work,” the statement read.Munch was profoundly hurt by the accusations, returning to the incident again and again in letters and diary entries. Both his father and sister suffered bouts of depression and Munch was finally hospitalized after a nervous breakdown in 1908, Guleng said.The National Gallery was temporarily closed in 2019 to secure a safe moving process to the new National Museum, which is under construction in downtown Oslo. The museum will exhibit 400,000 objects ranging from antiquity to the present day and includes paintings, sculpture, drawings, textiles, furniture and architectural models.
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NASA Supply Ship Arrives at ISS
A NASA unmanned resupply ship docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday carrying more than 3,600 kilograms of research equipment and supplies to the orbiting laboratory. The spacecraft, built by aerospace company Northrop Grumman, was bolted into place on the Earth-facing port of the ISS shortly after arrival. Along with basic supplies for the space station, the ship’s cargo included equipment to conduct science investigations into the creation of artificial retinas for treating degenerative human eye diseases, zero-gravity advanced computer capabilities, and the cause of muscle weakening that astronauts can experience in microgravity using tiny worms. Northrop Grumman named the supply capsule the S.S. Katherine Johnson, after the African American NASA mathematician whose work was made famous in the movie “Hidden Figures.” Her calculations contributed to the February 20, 1962, flight in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. The supply ship blasted off from Wallops Island in Virginia on Saturday. It will remain at the space station until May, when it will depart for Earth carrying several tons of trash.
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Grammy-Winning Duo Daft Punk Break Up After 28 years
Grammy-winning electronic music pioneers Daft Punk have announced that they are breaking up after 28 years.
The helmet-wearing French duo shared the news Monday in an 8-minute video called “Epilogue.” Kathryn Frazier, the band’s longtime publicist, confirmed the break up for The Associated Press.
Daft Punk, comprised of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, have had major success over the years, winning six Grammy Awards and launching international hits with “One More Time,” “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Get Lucky.”
Bangalter and de Homem-Christo met at a Paris school in 1987. Prior to Daft Punk, they formed an indie rock band named Darling.
They officially formed Daft Punk in 1993, and the helmeted, mute and mysterious musicians released their debut album, “Homework,” 1997. They first found success with the international hit “Da Funk,” which topped the Billboard dance charts and earned them their first Grammy nomination. A second No. 1 hit and Grammy nomination followed with “Around the World.”
Daft Punk spent time touring around the world and reached greater heights with their sophomore album, 2001’s “Discovery.” It included the infectious smash “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which Kanye West famously flipped into his own hit “Stronger,” released in 2007. It won West the best rap solo performance Grammy at the 2008 show, where West and Daft Punk performed together onstage.
A year later, a live version of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” won Daft Punk the best dance recording Grammy — their first win — and their “Alive 2007” album picked up best electronic/dance album.
But it was the 2014 Grammys where Daft Punk really took the spotlight, winning album of the year for “Random Access Memories” and making history as the first electronic act to win the highest honor at the Grammys. The duo won four awards that night, including record of the year for their bombshell hit “Get Lucky,” featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.
“Random Access Memories” was regarded as a genre-bending album highlighted by its mix of live instrumentation, disco sounds, funk, rock, R&B and more. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 295 on their list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” last year.
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International Red Cross Issues Emergency Appeal to Halt New Ebola Outbreak in West Africa
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is appealing for $9.4 million to fund efforts to prevent a new Ebola outbreak from spreading across West Africa.
The IFRC said Monday the money will be used to step up “surveillance and community sensitization efforts” in Guinea, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
“Ebola does not care about borders,” said Mohammed Mukhier, the IFRC’s Regional Director for Africa. “Close social, cultural and economic ties between communities in Guinea and neighboring countries create a very serious risk of the virus spreading to Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone, and potentially even further.”
Health officials in Guinea declared an epidemic Sunday after three cases were detected in Gouécké, a rural community in N’Zerekore prefecture. At least one victim there has died. It is the first Ebola outbreak in Guinea since 2016.
The 2014 Ebola outbreak, the biggest in history, killed more than 11,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Guinea was expecting the delivery of 11,000 doses of Ebola vaccine from the World Health Organization Sunday, but the Reuters news agency says the shipment was delayed due to heavy dust brought by winds from the Sahara Desert. The shipment is now due to arrive in Conarky on Monday, with vaccination efforts due to begin on Tuesday.
Guinea is also expecting another 8,600 doses of vaccine from the United States.
There have also been four confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including two deaths. WHO has around 20 experts supporting national and provincial health authorities in the DRC.
The United Nations announced it is releasing $15 million from its emergency relief fund to help fight the outbreaks in both Guinea and the DRC.
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Israel Shuts Mediterranean Shore After Oil Devastates Coast
Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice Sunday, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country’s worst ecological disasters.Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel’s coast last week after a heavy storm. The deposits have wreaked havoc on local wildlife, and the Israeli Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry determined Sunday that a dead young fin whale that washed up on a beach in southern Israel died from ingesting the viscous black liquid, according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority has called the spill “one of the most serious ecological disasters” in the country’s history. In 2014, a crude oil spill in the Arava Desert caused extensive damage to one of the country’s delicate ecosystems. The Environmental Protection Ministry and activists estimate that at least 1,000 tons of tar, a product of an oil spill from a ship in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, have washed up on shore. The ministry is trying to determine who is responsible. It declined commenting on details of the investigation because it was ongoing. Yoav Ratner, coordinator of the ministry’s oil spill contingency plan, said that there were still many “unknown unknowns” about the extent of the ecological damage and therefore it was difficult to say how long cleanup would take. Thousands of volunteers took to the beaches on Saturday to help clean up the tar, and several were hospitalized after they inhaled toxic fumes. The military also deployed thousands of soldiers to assist in the operation. The Environmental Protection, Health and Interior Ministries issued a joint statement Sunday warning the public not to visit the entire length of the country’s 195-kilometer (120-mile) Mediterranean coastline, cautioning that “exposure to tar can be harmful to public health.” Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel told Hebrew media that her department estimates the cleanup project will cost millions of dollars.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured one of the country’s tar-pocked beaches on Sunday and praised the ministry’s work.Representatives from a coalition of Israeli environmental groups said in a press conference on Sunday that the ministry was woefully underfunded, and that existing legislation did little to prevent or address environmental disasters. Arik Rosenblum, director of the Israeli environmental group EcoOcean, said that the Environmental Protection Ministry is “fighting this situation and many other situations with their hands tied behind their back” because of inadequate legislation. They cautioned that this disaster should be a wake-up call for opposition to a planned oil pipeline connecting the United Arab Emirates and Israeli oil facilities in Eilat — home to endangered Red Sea coral reefs.
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Israeli Economy Reopening Following Coronavirus Shutdown
Israel has reopened many schools, malls and gyms that were closed for several weeks. Some venues, however, are open only to those with a “green passport,” a document showing they have received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine. The opening comes amid reports that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine works better than expected. Malls reopened after almost two months, and there were lines outside some of the stores. Parking lots were jammed, and many children went back in school for the first time in months. But some venues, like gyms, cultural events and hotels, are open only to those with a green passport, a document showing that they have either received both shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, or have recovered from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel is not imposing an obligation to get vaccinated. Edelstein said that contrary to what he called “fake news,” Israel is not imposing sanctions on anyone who does not get vaccinated. At the same time, some in Israel said that limiting venues like gyms and hotels to those who have been vaccinated was in effect a sanction on those who hadn’t received the shots. FILE – Israelis receive a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from medical professionals at a coronavirus vaccination center set up on a shopping mall parking lot in Givataim, Israel, Feb. 4, 2021.So far, about one-third of Israel’s population of 9.2 million has received both doses, and nearly half have received the first shot. A further 3 million Israelis are not eligible to receive the vaccine, either because they are under 16 or because they have recovered from the infection. The director of Israel’s Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Ronni Gamzu, says the results of the Pfizer vaccine are even better than in clinical trials. They show that the vaccine is very effective and very, very minor side effects almost, you know what, almost none, we have seen cases here and there, and we have seen the effectiveness is what was stated in the studies of Pfizer and Moderna, around 95 percent, and if you look at people admitted to the hospital it is even more than that. The protection is solid, said Gamzu.Israel’s Health Ministry said that after two doses, Israelis saw their risk of illness from the coronavirus drop 98.5 percent, and their risk of hospitalization drop almost 99 percent. The statement was based on data from a poll of 1.7 million Israelis who had received both shots by the end of January. Among those being vaccinated are Arab citizens of Israel, and Palestinians in east Jerusalem, which is under Israeli control; but, the 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have yet to be inoculated. The Palestinian minister of health said on Friday that Israel has agreed to vaccinate 100,000 Palestinian laborers who work regularly in Israel. Some human rights groups say that because Israel controls entry and exit into the West Bank and Gaza, it is responsible for providing vaccinations for the residents there.
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Weather Disrupts US COVID Vaccine Delivery
Major winter storms, extreme cold and power outages shut down more than 2,000 vaccination sites and delayed delivery of 6 million vaccine doses in all 50 states last week, White House senior adviser Andy Slavitt said in a briefing with reporters Friday.Extreme weather has spread across large swaths of the United States since Feb. 14. Crippling snowfall and record-cold temperatures hit Oklahoma and Arkansas and triggered power outages across Texas.The storms set back the Biden administration’s efforts to ramp up vaccine delivery. Earlier in the month, more than 1.5 million doses per day were delivered on average. Preliminary data from last week show a steep drop-off, but full numbers are not yet available.The weather delayed President Joe Biden’s visit to a Kalamazoo, Michigian, plant producing vaccine from drugmaker Pfizer from Thursday to Friday.The weather is improving and deliveries are getting back on track, with 1.4 million doses shipping Friday, Slavitt said. But the backups will take time to clear.”We anticipate that all the backlog doses will be delivered within the next week, with most being delivered within the next several days,” he said.The weather caused disruptions all along the supply chain, Slavitt said.A plant packaging vaccines from pharmaceutical company Moderna was knocked offline by a winter storm.”Roads are being cleared for the workforce to leave their homes,” Slavitt said. “They are working today through Sunday to package the backlogged orders.”Road closures held up deliveries between manufacturing, distribution and shipping sites. And workers at all three major shipping companies, UPS, FedEx and McKesson, have been snowed in, he added, holding up shipments.Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech need to be kept extremely cold while stored, but Slavitt told CNN Thursday that “there hasn’t been a single vaccine that’s spoiled” due to the delays.”The vaccines are sitting safe and sound in our factories and hubs, ready to be shipped out as soon as the weather allows,” he told reporters Friday.The disruptions were severe enough for Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker to discuss sending the state’s National Guard to rescue doses trapped in Kentucky and Tennessee.After federal officials rushed 135,000 doses to the state, Baker spokesperson Kate Reilly said Friday that the governor “appreciates the efforts made to get this critical shipment here and is not anticipating additional delays from the federal government for vaccine shipments at this time.”Slavitt said the federal government is asking vaccinators to extend hours and offer extra appointments to catch up.”We will be able to catch up, but we understand this will mean asking more of people,” he said.
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COVID Conspiracy Disinformation Campaign Has Had Vast Reach, Study Finds
It took just three months for the rumor that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was engineered as a bioweapon to spread from the fringes of the Chinese internet and take root in millions of people’s minds.By March 2020, belief that the virus had been human-made and possibly weaponized was widespread, multiple surveys indicated. The Pew Research Center found, for example, that one in three Americans believed the new coronavirus had been created in a lab; one in four thought it had been engineered intentionally.This chaos was, at least in part, manufactured.Powerful forces, from Beijing and Washington to Moscow and Tehran, have battled to control the narrative about where the virus came from. Leading officials and allied media in all four countries functioned as super-spreaders of disinformation, using their stature to sow doubt and amplify politically expedient conspiracies already in circulation, a nine-month Associated Press investigation of state-sponsored disinformation conducted in collaboration with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab found. The analysis was based on a review of millions of social media postings and articles on Twitter, Facebook, VK, Weibo, WeChat, YouTube, Telegram, and other platforms.Disinformation leaderAs the pandemic swept the world, it was China — not Russia — that took the lead in spreading foreign disinformation about COVID-19 virus’s origins.Beijing was reacting to weeks of fiery rhetoric from leading U.S. Republicans, including then-President Donald Trump, who sought to rebrand COVID-19 virus as “the China virus.”China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Beijing has worked to promote friendship and serve facts, while defending itself against hostile forces seeking to politicize the pandemic.“All parties should firmly say ‘no’ to the dissemination of disinformation,” the ministry said in a statement to AP, but added, “In the face of trumped-up charges, it is justified and proper to bust lies and clarify rumors by setting out the facts.”FILE – Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian takes a question at the daily media briefing in Beijing on April 8, 2020.The day after the World Health Organization designated the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shot off a series of late-night tweets that launched what may be the party’s first truly global digital experiment with overt disinformation.Chinese diplomats have only recently mobilized on Western social media platforms, more than tripling their Twitter accounts and more than doubling their Facebook accounts since late 2019. Both platforms are banned in China.”When did patient zero begin in US?” Zhao tweeted on March 12. “How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe (sic) us an explanation!”What happened next showcases the power of China’s global messaging machine.Spray of tweetsOn Twitter alone, Zhao’s aggressive spray of 11 tweets on March 12 and 13 was cited more than 99,000 times over the next six weeks, in at least 54 languages, according to an analysis conducted by DFRLab. The accounts that referenced him had nearly 275 million followers on Twitter, a number that almost certainly includes duplicate followers and does not distinguish fake accounts.Influential conservatives on Twitter, including Donald Trump Jr., hammered Zhao, propelling his tweets to their largest audiences.China’s Global Times and at least 30 Chinese diplomatic accounts, from France to Panama, rushed in to support Zhao. Venezuela’s foreign minister and RT’s correspondent in Caracas, as well as Saudi accounts close to the kingdom’s royal family, also significantly extended Zhao’s reach, helping launch his ideas into Spanish and Arabic.FILE – The logo of Sina Corp.’s Chinese microblogging site, Weibo, on a screen, Beijing, September 2011.His accusations got uncritical treatment in Russian and Iranian state media and shot back through QAnon discussion boards. But his biggest audience, by far, lay within China itself — even though Twitter is banned there. Popular hashtags about his tweetstorm were viewed 314 million times on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, which does not distinguish unique views.Late on the night of March 13, Zhao posted a message of gratitude on his personal Weibo: “Thank you for your support to me, let us work hard for the motherland ??!”China leaned on Russian disinformation strategy and infrastructure, turning to an established network of Kremlin proxies to seed and spread messaging. In January, Russian state media were the first to legitimize the theory that the U.S. engineered the virus as a weapon. Russian politicians soon joined the chorus.”One was amplifying the other. How much it was command controlled, how much it was opportunistic, it was hard to tell,” said Janis Sarts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, based in Riga, Latvia.FILE – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a televised speech, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2021. (Official Khamenei Website/Handout via Reuters)Iran participatesIran also jumped in. The same day Zhao tweeted that the virus might have come from the U.S. Army, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced COVID-19 could be the result of a biological attack. He would later cite that conspiracy to justify refusing COVID-19 aid from the U.S.Ten days after Zhao’s first conspiratorial tweets, China’s global state media apparatus kicked in.”Did the U.S. government intentionally conceal the reality of COVID-19 with the flu?” asked a suggestive op-ed in Mandarin published by China Radio International on March 22. “Why was the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick in Maryland, the largest biochemical testing base, shut down in July 2019?”Within days, versions of the piece appeared more than 350 times in Chinese state outlets, mostly in Mandarin, but also around the world in English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic, AP found.China’s Embassy in France promoted the story on Twitter and Facebook. It appeared on YouTube, Weibo, WeChat and a host of Chinese video platforms, including Haokan, Xigua, Baijiahao, Bilibili, iQIYI, Kuaishou and Youku. A seven-second version set to driving music appeared on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.No consequences”Clearly pushing these kinds of conspiracy theories, disinformation, does not usually result in any negative consequences for them,” said Mareike Ohlberg, a senior fellow in the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund.In April, Russia and Iran largely dropped the bioweapon conspiracy in their overt messaging.China, however, has carried on.In January, as a team from the World Health Organization poured through records in China to try to pinpoint the origins of the virus, spokeswoman Hua Chunying of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the U.S. to “open the biological lab at Fort Detrick, give more transparency to issues like its 200-plus overseas biolabs, invite WHO experts to conduct origin-tracing in the United States.”Her remarks went viral in China.China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AP it resolutely opposes spreading conspiracy theories.”We have not done it before and will not do it in the future,” the ministry said in a statement. “False information is the common enemy of mankind, and China has always opposed the creation and spread of false information.”
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Argentine Health Minister Resigns Amid COVID Vaccine Scandal
Argentina’s health minister has resigned after he reportedly gave preferential treatment to those with personal connections when authorizing coronavirus vaccinations.The Associated Press reported that President Alberto Fernández, through his chief of staff, asked for Minister of Health Ginés González García’s resignation Friday after a high-profile local journalist said he had been vaccinated after personally asking the minister.González García had led the country’s COVID-19 strategy.The journalist was one of at least 10 people reported to have been inoculated without following protocol.The scandal heightened concerns about corruption in the region, as well as access to limited doses of vaccines.Two Cabinet officials in Peru resigned earlier this month following reports of hundreds of Peruvian officials inappropriately receiving vaccine doses.Praise from WHOMeanwhile, the World Health Organization said it welcomed the recent pledges of coronavirus vaccines from several Western countries to the international health group that will help ensure an equitable allocation of vaccines around the world.FILE – Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, speaks during a session of the Executive Board on the coronavirus disease outbreak, in Geneva, Jan. 21, 2021.“There is a growing movement behind vaccine equity, and I welcome that world leaders are stepping up to the challenge by making new commitments to effectively end this pandemic by sharing doses and increasing funds to COVAX,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said recently. COVAX is the mechanism WHO established for the global distribution of coronavirus vaccines.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that the pandemic would not end until the world was vaccinated. In remarks after the videoconference of leaders of the G-7, the group of the largest, developed economies, she said Germany and other wealthy countries might need to give some of their own stock of vaccines to developing nations.French President Emmanuel Macron told the conference that Europe and the United States must quickly send enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa to inoculate the continent’s health care workers or risk losing influence to Russia and China.The coronavirus death toll on the African continent surpassed 100,000 Friday, as African countries struggle to obtain vaccines to counteract the pandemic.South Africa alone accounts for nearly half of the confirmed deaths in Africa, with more than 48,000, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center in the U.S. The country, which is facing its own variant of the virus, also accounts for nearly half the confirmed cases in the region, with more than 1.5 million. Total cases across the African continent are more than 3.8 million.The 54-nation continent of about 1.3 billion people reached 100,000 deaths shortly after marking one year since the first coronavirus case was confirmed on the continent, in Egypt on February 14, 2020.The actual death toll from the virus in Africa is believed to be higher than the official count as some who died were likely never included in confirmed tallies.FILE – A container with doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus disease is loaded into a truck, at the airport in Luque, Paraguay, Feb. 18, 2021.Russian vaccinesRussia’s deputy prime minister said Saturday on state television that Russia was on target to produce 88 million coronavirus vaccine doses in the first six months of 2021. Tatiana Golikova said 83 million of the doses would be the Sputnik V vaccine.Russia’s prime minister, also speaking on state television Saturday, said that Russia had approved a third coronavirus vaccine for domestic use.Mikhail Mishustin said the first 120,000 doses of CoviVac, produced by the Chumakov Centre in St. Petersburg, would be released in March.California’s governor said his state would set aside 10% of its vaccines for teachers and school employees, beginning March 1. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged U.S. school districts to reopen, teachers unions have pushed back against the action, saying safety precautions, such as vaccines for school staff, need to be in place first.Denmark is imposing stricter regulations at some of its border crossings with Germany and has temporarily closed others because of a COVID-19 outbreak in the German town of Flensburg.“Therefore, we are now introducing considerably more intense border checks and closing a number of smaller border crossings along the Danish-German border,” Danish Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup said in a statement.Johns Hopkins reported Saturday afternoon EST that there were more than 110,940,000 global COVID-19 cases. The U.S. had more cases than any other country with 28 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 10 million. Global deaths were more than 2.4 million.FILE – A child wearing a mask to protect against the coronavirus rests on the bank of the Yangtze River in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, April 16, 2020.Book dealA major publishing company has picked up a self-published children’s book, illustrated with simple line drawings, about a little boy struggling with all the changes in his life because of the COVID-19 pandemic.When Can I Go Back to School was written by Anna Friend, a theater director, about her son Billy. She told The Guardian newspaper, “I wrote the book to try and understand what was happening to him.”She asked Jake Biggin, a friend who is an artist, to do the illustrations. They started selling the book on Amazon and now they have a deal with Scholastic.
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Naomi Osaka Shines to Claim Second Australian Open Crown
Naomi Osaka gave Jennifer Brady a lesson in Grand Slam tennis as she cruised to a 6-4 6-3 win to secure her second Australian Open title Saturday and cement her standing as the new queen of the women’s game.
Osaka’s victory over the 22nd-seeded American at a floodlit Rod Laver Arena gave the Japanese third seed her fourth major crown at the age of 23.
Fans hoping for a repeat of the pair’s engrossing U.S. Open semi-final last year were left disappointed as Brady froze in the spotlight of her first Grand Slam final.
U.S. Open champion Osaka played some way short of her best tennis and joined Brady in contributing to a dour, error-strewn first set.
But she settled to clinch six straight games, roaring to a 4-0 lead in the second before serving out the match to love.
A big serve sealed it, causing Brady to fire a forehand return long, and Osaka held her racket over her head and beamed in an understated celebration.
Osaka, who won the 2019 tournament, offered Brady warm congratulations and thanked the fans at the trophy ceremony.
“When we played in the semis of the U.S. Open, a couple of months ago, and I told everyone that ‘Listen you’re going to be a problem’. And I was right,” said Osaka, who will be world number two when the rankings are updated.
“It feels really incredible for me. I didn’t play my last Grand Slam with fans so just to have this energy it really means a lot.”
Early nerves
On a cool and breezy night at Rod Laver Arena, Osaka warmed up with two aces as she served out the opening game to love but the blazing start fizzled out in a stream of errors from both players.
Grappling with early nerves, Brady dropped serve after two double-faults but quickly broke back when Osaka double-faulted to gift a break point.
Brady breathed some life into the contest at 4-4, luring Osaka in with a drop-shot, then scrambling forward to retrieve and lob her for break point.
Osaka canceled it in steely fashion with an imperious forehand winner launched from the baseline.
Brady kept offering Osaka gifts from her racket.
Serving to stay in the set at 5-4, she double-faulted then slapped a wild forehand over the baseline to cough up set point.
Brady fired down a huge serve that Osaka could only return short, then stepped in to pound what should have been a simple forehand winner straight into the net.
The crowd groaned and Brady went to her chair ashen-faced.
Osaka stepped up the pressure, breaking Brady again after setting up the chance with a sumptuous crosscourt backhand winner.
She charged on to a 4-0 lead before Brady belatedly conjured some resistance to break Osaka against the flow of play.
The American clawed back to 5-3 but bowed out as she started, smashing wild returns to allow Osaka to serve out the match without trouble.
Although it was a tough first Grand Slam final for Brady, she broke new ground in a remarkable run after being one of the 72 players unable to train during their two-week hard quarantine in the lead-up.
“First I would like to congratulate Naomi on another Grand Slam title,” said the 25-year-old.
“She’s such an inspiration to us all and what she’s doing for the game is amazing and getting the sport out there and I hope young girls at home are watching and are inspired by what she’s doing.”
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With Louvre Mostly Closed to Public, Staff Gets Rare Chance to Catch Up on Chores
The 518-year-old Mona Lisa has seen many things in her life on a wall, but rarely this: Almost four months with no Louvre visitors.
As she stares out through bulletproof glass into the silent Salle des Etats, in what was once the world’s most-visited museum, her celebrated smile could almost denote relief.
A bit further on, the white marble Venus de Milo is for once free of her girdle of picture-snapping visitors.
It’s uncertain when the Paris museum will reopen, after being closed on Oct. 30 in line with the French government’s virus containment measures. But those lucky enough to get in benefit from a rare private look at collections covering 9,000 years of human history — with plenty of space to breathe.
That’s normally sorely lacking in a museum that’s blighted by its own success: Before the pandemic, staff walked out complaining they couldn’t handle the overcrowding, with up to 30,000-40,000 visitors a day.
The forced closure has also granted museum officials a golden opportunity to carry out long-overdue refurbishments that were simply not possible with nearly 10 million visitors a year.
Unlike the first lockdown, which brought all Louvre activities to a halt, the second has seen some 250 of the museum employees remain fully operational.
An army of curators, restorers and workers are cleaning sculptures, reordering artifacts, checking inventories, reorganizing entrances and conducting restorations, including in the Egyptian Wing and the Grande Galerie, the museum’s largest hall that is being fully renovated.
“We’re taking advantage of the museum’s closure to carry out a number of major works, speed up maintenance operations and start repair works that are difficult to schedule when the museum is operating normally,” Laurent le Guedart, the Louvre’s Architectural Heritage and Gardens Director told AP from inside the Grande Galerie.
As le Guedart spoke, restorers were standing atop scaffolds taking scientific probes of the walls in preparation for a planned restoration, travelling back to the 18th century through layer after layer of paint.
Around the corner the sound of carpenters taking up floorboards was faintly audible. They were putting in the cables for a new security system.
Previously, these jobs could only be done on a Tuesday, the Louvre’s only closed day in the week. Now hammers are tapping, machines drilling and brushes scrubbing to a full week schedule, slowed down only slightly by social distancing measures.
In total, ten large-scale projects that were on hold since last March are underway — and progressing fast.
This includes works in the Etruscan and Italian Halls, and the gilded Salon Carre. A major restoration of the ancient Egyptian tomb chapel of Akhethotep from 2400BC is also underway.
“When the museum reopens, everything will be perfect for its visitors — this Sleeping Beauty will have had the time to powder her nose,” said Elisabeth Antoine-Konig, Artifacts Department Curator. “Visitors will be happy to see again these now well-lit rooms with polished floors and remodeled display cases.”
Initially, only visitors with pre-booked reservations will be granted entry in line with virus safety precautions.
Those who cannot wait are still able to see the Louvre’s treasure trove of art in virtual tours online.
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WHO: ‘Growing Movement Behind Vaccine Equity’
The World Health Organization says it welcomes the recent pledges of coronavirus vaccines from several Western countries to the international health group that will help ensure an equitable allocation of vaccines to countries around the world.“There is a growing movement behind vaccine equity, and I welcome that world leaders are stepping up to the challenge by making new commitments to effectively end this pandemic by sharing doses and increasing funds to COVAX,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said recently. COVAX is the global mechanism WHO established for the global distribution of coronavirus vaccines.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday the pandemic will not end until the world is vaccinated. In remarks after the video conference of leaders of the G-7, the group of the largest, developed economies, she said Germany and other wealthy countries may need to give some of their own stock of vaccines to developing nations.French President Emmanuel Macron told the conference that Europe and the United States must quickly send enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa to inoculate the continent’s health care workers or risk losing influence to Russia and China.The coronavirus death toll on the African continent surpassed 100,000 Friday, as African countries struggle to obtain vaccines to counteract the pandemic.South Africa alone accounts for nearly half of the confirmed deaths in Africa, with more than 48,000, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The country, which is facing its own variant of the virus, also accounts for nearly half the confirmed cases in the region, with more than 1.5 million. Total cases across the African continent are more than 3.8 million.The 54-nation continent of about 1.3 billion people reached 100,000 deaths shortly after marking one year since the first coronavirus case was confirmed on the continent, in Egypt on Feb. 14, 2020.The actual death toll from the virus in Africa is believed to be higher than the official count as some who died were likely never included in confirmed tallies.Visitors wear face masks while walking the pier amid the COVID-19 pandemic Feb. 19, 2021, in Santa Monica, Calif.Russia’s deputy prime minister said Saturday on state television that Russia is on target to produce 88 million coronavirus vaccine doses in the first six months of 2021. Tatiana Golikova said 83 million of the doses will be the Sputnik V vaccine.Russia’s prime minister, also speaking on state television Saturday, said that Russia has approved a third coronavirus vaccine for domestic use.Mikhail Mishustin said the first 120,000 doses of CoviVac, produced by the Chumakov Centre in St. Petersburg, will be released in March.California’s governor says his state will set aside 10% of its vaccines for teachers and school employees, beginning March 1. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged U.S. school districts to reopen, teachers’ unions have pushed back against the action, saying safety precautions, such as vaccines for school staff, need to be in place first.Denmark is imposing stricter regulations at some of its border crossings with Germany and has temporarily closed others because of a COVID-19 outbreak in the German town of Flensburg.A sign encourages visitors to wear face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic Feb. 19, 2021, in Santa Monica, Calif.“Therefore, we are now introducing considerably more intense border checks and closing a number of smaller border crossings along the Danish-German border,” Danish Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup said in a statement.Johns Hopkins reported early Saturday that there are 110,747,370 global COVID-19 cases. The U.S. has more cases than any other country with 28 million, followed by India with 10.9 million and Brazil with 10 million.A major publishing company has picked up a self-published children’s book, illustrated with simple line drawings, about a little boy struggling with all the changes in his life due to the COVID-19 pandemic.When Can I Go Back To School was written by Anna Friend, a theater director, about her son Billy. She told The Guardian newspaper, “I wrote the book to try and understand what was happening to him.”She asked Jake Biggin, a friend who is an artist, to do the illustrations. They started selling the book on Amazon and now they have a deal with Scholastic.
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Google Fires 2nd AI Ethics Leader as Dispute Over Research, Diversity Grows
Alphabet Inc.’s Google fired staff scientist Margaret Mitchell on Friday, they both said, a move that fanned company divisions on academic freedom and diversity that were on display since its December dismissal of AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru.Google said in a statement that Mitchell violated the company’s code of conduct and security policies by moving electronic files outside the company. Mitchell, who announced her firing on Twitter, did not respond to a request for comment.Google’s ethics in artificial intelligence work has been under scrutiny since the firing of Gebru, a scientist who gained prominence for exposing bias in facial analysis systems. The dismissal prompted thousands of Google workers to protest. She and Mitchell had called for greater diversity and inclusion among Google’s research staff and expressed concern that the company was starting to censor papers critical of its products.Gebru said Google fired her after she questioned an order not to publish a study saying AI that mimics language could hurt marginalized populations. Mitchell, a co-author of the paper, publicly criticized the company for firing Gebru and undermining the credibility of her work.The pair for about two years had co-led the ethical AI team, started by Mitchell.Google AI research director Zoubin Ghahramani and a company lawyer informed Mitchell’s team of her firing on Friday in a meeting called at short notice, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person said little explanation was given for the dismissal. Google declined to comment.The company said Mitchell’s firing followed disciplinary recommendations by investigators and a review committee. It said her violations “included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees.” The investigation began Jan. 19.Google employee Alex Hanna said on Twitter the company was running a “smear campaign” against Mitchell and Gebru, with whom she worked closely. Google declined to comment on Hanna’s remarks.Google has recruited top scientists with promises of research freedom, but the limits are tested as researchers increasingly write about the negative effects of technology and offer unflattering perspectives on their employer’s products.Reuters reported exclusively in December that Google introduced a new “sensitive topics” review last year to ensure that papers on topics such as the oil industry and content recommendation systems would not get the company into legal or regulatory trouble. Mitchell publicly expressed concern that the policy could lead to censorship.Google reiterated to researchers in a memo and meeting on Friday that it was working to improve pre-publication review of papers. It also announced new policies on Friday to handle sensitive departures and evaluate executives based on team diversity and inclusion.
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Africa’s Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 100,000
The coronavirus death toll on the African continent surpassed 100,000 on Friday, as African countries struggled to obtain vaccines to counteract the pandemic.South Africa alone accounts for nearly half of the confirmed deaths in Africa with 48,859, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The country, which is facing its own variant of the virus, also accounts for nearly half the confirmed cases in the region, with more than 1.5 million. Total cases across the African continent are more than 3.8 million.The 54-nation continent of about 1.3 billion people reached the milestone of 100,000 deaths shortly after marking one year since the first coronavirus case was confirmed on the continent, in Egypt on Feb. 14, 2020.The actual death toll from the virus in Africa is believed to be higher than the official count as some who died were likely never included in confirmed tallies.Countries across the continent are only beginning to see the arrival of coronavirus vaccines, months after some wealthier countries are well under way in the process of vaccinating their most vulnerable populations.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the global manufacturing capacity of coronavirus vaccines needs to double to meet global demand.In a virtual address to this year’s Munich Security Conference, he called for a global vaccination plan to ensure an equitable vaccine distribution and said the biggest world powers must work together.Backdropped by a national flag, a doctor waits to receive a dose of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V at the Ana Francisca Perez de Leon II public hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Feb. 19, 2021.Without naming the United States and China, he said, “Our world cannot afford a future where the two largest economies split the globe into two opposing areas in a Great Fracture.”U.S. President Joe Biden announced Friday the U.S. would soon begin releasing $4 billion it pledged to a global campaign to bolster the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to poor countries. The funds were approved by Congress in December, but former President Donald Trump had declined to participate in the program.At his first meeting as president with world leaders at the Munich Security Conference, Biden announced the financial support for COVAX, a coalition tasked with distributing vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.“Even as we fight to get out of the teeth of this pandemic, a resurgence of Ebola in Africa is a stark reminder that we must simultaneously work to finally finance health security, strengthen global health systems, and create early warning systems to prevent, detect and respond to future biological threats, because they will keep coming,” Biden said at the virtual meeting.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the pandemic will not end until the world is vaccinated. In remarks after the video conference of leaders of the G-7 group of large, developed economies, she said Germany and other wealthy countries may need to give some of their own stock of vaccines to developing nations.French President Emmanuel Macron told the conference that Europe and the United States must quickly send enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to Africa to inoculate the continent’s health care workers or risk losing influence to Russia and China.”If we announce billions today to supply doses in six months, eight months, a year, our friends in Africa will, under justified pressure from their people, buy doses from the Chinese and the Russians,” Macron told the conference.A man and child wearing face masks to protect against the spread of the coronavirus walk past lanterns at a public park in Beijing on Feb. 19, 2021.Also Friday, Brazil reported 1,308 additional COVID-19 deaths and 51,050 new confirmed cases of the virus on Friday, according to data released by the Health Ministry.The South American nation has now recorded more than 243,000 deaths and more than 100 million cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins.In Russia, officials reported Friday 13,433 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24-hour period and 470 deaths.Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases said a new COVID-19 variant has emerged at a Tokyo immigration facility.A day after the Australian state of Victoria lifted its COVID-19 five-day lockdown, three family members tested positive for the coronavirus. Two of the three had quarantined at the Holiday Inn at the Melbourne airport.Health officials in Spain say they have given a full two-shot course of the coronavirus vaccines to almost all the country’s elderly nursing home residents.Officials in the United States extended land border closures with Canada and Mexico for another 30 days. The extension is the first announced since President Biden took office in January.White House officials said Friday that the distribution of the vaccine has been held up in all 50 states by winter storms and power outages. They say the country has a backlog of 6 million vaccine doses, but that the federal government expects to be caught up by next week.In another development Friday, pharmaceutical partners Pfizer and BioNTech said a new study they conducted indicates their COVID-19 vaccine can remain effective when stored in standard freezers for up to two weeks.If the finding is approved, it would be a significant development since one of the initial drawbacks of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was that it was required to be stored in ultra-low-temperature freezers not commonly found in standard clinics and pharmacies.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday that data collected in the first month of vaccinations in the United States have found no concerning new issues with either the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine.It said data collected from the administration of 13.8 million doses of vaccine between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 13, 2021, showed 6,994 reports of adverse events after vaccination, with 90.8% of them classified as nonserious and 9.2% as serious.There are more than 110 million global cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins. The United States tops the list with nearly 28 million infections. India is second with nearly 11 million cases, followed by Brazil with more than 10 million.
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US Rejoins Paris Climate Pact
The United States has officially rejoined the Paris Agreement after the Trump administration abandoned the global climate pact saying it was too costly for business. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.Produced by: Kimberlyn Weeks
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Suspected Russian Hack Fuels New US Action on Cybersecurity
Jolted by a sweeping hack that may have revealed government and corporate secrets to Russia, U.S. officials are scrambling to reinforce the nation’s cyber defenses and recognizing that an agency created two years ago to protect America’s networks and infrastructure lacks the money, tools and authority to counter such sophisticated threats.The breach, which hijacked widely used software from Texas-based SolarWinds Inc., has exposed the profound vulnerability of civilian government networks and the limitations of efforts to detect threats.It’s also likely to unleash a wave of spending on technology modernization and cybersecurity.”It’s really highlighted the investments we need to make in cybersecurity to have the visibility to block these attacks in the future,” Anne Neuberger, the newly appointed deputy national security adviser for cyber and emergency technology, said Wednesday at a White House briefing. ‘Likely Russian’ hackersThe reaction reflects the severity of a hack that was disclosed only in December. The hackers, as yet unidentified but described by officials as “likely Russian,” had unfettered access to the data and email of at least nine U.S. government agencies and about 100 private companies, with the full extent of the compromise still unknown. And while this incident appeared to be aimed at stealing information, it heightened fears that future hackers could damage critical infrastructure, like electrical grids or water systems.President Joe Biden plans to release an executive order soon that Neuberger said would include about eight measures intended to address security gaps exposed by the hack. The administration has also proposed expanding by 30% the budget of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, or CISA, a little-known entity now under intense scrutiny because of the SolarWinds breach.President Joe Biden participates in a virtual event with the Munich Security Conference in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 19, 2021.Biden, making his first major international speech Friday to the Munich Security Conference, said that dealing with “Russian recklessness and hacking into computer networks in the United States and the world has become critical to protecting our collective security.”Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for expanding the size and role of the agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in November 2018 amid a sense that U.S. adversaries were increasingly targeting civilian government and corporate networks as well as the critical infrastructure, such as the energy grid that is increasingly vulnerable in a wired world.Call for resourcesSpeaking at a recent hearing on cybersecurity, Representative John Katko, a Republican from New York, urged his colleagues to quickly “find a legislative vehicle to give CISA the resources it needs to fully respond and protect us.”Biden’s COVID-19 relief package called for $690 million more for CISA, as well as providing the agency with $9 billion to modernize IT across the government in partnership with the General Services Administration.That has been pulled from the latest version of the bill because some members didn’t see a connection to the pandemic. But Representative Jim Langevin, co-chair of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, said additional funding for CISA was likely to reemerge with bipartisan support in upcoming legislation, perhaps an infrastructure bill.FILE – Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., prepares the dais after he was chosen as speaker pro tempore for the opening day of the 116th Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 3, 2019.”Our cyber infrastructure is every bit as important as our roads and bridges,” Langevin, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in an interview. “It’s important to our economy. It’s important to protecting human life, and we need to make sure we have a modern and resilient cyber infrastructure.”CISA operates a threat-detection system known as Einstein that was unable to detect the SolarWinds breach. Brandon Wales, CISA’s acting director, said that was because the breach was hidden in a legitimate software update from SolarWinds to its customers. After it was able to identify the malicious activity, the system was able to scan federal networks and identify some government victims.”It was designed to work in concert with other security programs inside the agencies,” he said.The former head of CISA, Christopher Krebs, told the House Homeland Security Committee this month that the U.S. should increase support to the agency, in part so it can issue grants to state and local governments to improve their cybersecurity and accelerate IT modernization across the federal government, which is part of the Biden proposal.FILE – Then-U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs speaks to reporters at CISA’s Election Day Operation Center in Arlington, Va., March 3, 2020.”Are we going to stop every attack? No. But we can take care of the most common risks and make the bad guys work that much harder and limit their success,” said Krebs, who was ousted by then-President Donald Trump after the election and now co-owns a consulting company whose clients include SolarWinds.The breach was discovered in early December by the private security firm FireEye, a cause of concern for some officials.”It was pretty alarming that we found out about it through a private company as opposed to our being able to detect it ourselves to begin with,” Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said at her January confirmation hearing.Right after the hack was announced, the Treasury Department bypassed its normal competitive contracting process to hire the private security firm CrowdStrike, U.S. contract records show. The department declined to comment. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has said that dozens of email accounts of top officials at the agency were hacked.’Backdoor code’The Social Security Administration hired FireEye to do an independent forensic analysis of its network logs. The agency had a “backdoor code” installed like other SolarWinds customers, but “there were no indicators suggesting we were targeted or that a future attack occurred beyond the initial software installation,” spokesperson Mark Hinkle said.Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the hack has highlighted several failures at the federal level but not necessarily a lack of expertise by public sector employees. Still, “I doubt we will ever have all the capacity we’d need in-house,” he said.There have been some new cybersecurity measures taken in recent months. In the defense policy bill that passed in January, lawmakers created a national director of cybersecurity, replacing a position at the White House that had been cut under Trump, and granted CISA the power to issue administrative subpoenas as part of its efforts to identify vulnerable systems and notify operators.The legislation also granted CISA increased authority to hunt for threats across the networks of civilian government agencies, something Langevin said they were only previously able to do when invited.”In practical terms, what that meant is they weren’t invited in because no department or agency wants to look bad,” he said. “So you know what was happening? Everyone was sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that cyberthreats were going to go away.”
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South African Medics to Row Northwest Passage From Canada to Alaska
Two South African medics are swapping their medical gear for oars as they train for a risky 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) journey by rowboat through the Arctic Northwest Passage.If the 14-member team finishes the trip — across the north of Canada to Alaska — they will make history, as all attempts to row the icy waters have failed. “Nobody conquers a passage there,” said Leven Brown, the expedition leader. ”The ocean allows you to pass. And there is a very important distinction there. We will be lucky to get through the Northwest Passage, to row from Pond Inlet at the top right-hand corner of Canada, to the top left-hand corner of Alaska, a place called Point Barrow.” In decades past, travel through the icy, Arctic waters was only possible by large ships. Physical, mental toll Reduced summer ice will allow the team to row the passage, but the journey — planned for next year — will still be a physical and mental challenge. The South African team member, Daniel Lobjoilt, says such a long, confined journey will likely take a toll. “We are going to be out there, in the elements, by ourselves, essentially, and I think after a certain period of time of repetitive rowing, on and off for, you know, weeks on end. Pressure on my mind might be the biggest challenge I have to overcome. So, my fear is … is that encounter that I have to have with myself,” Lobjoilt said. Gathering dataAlong the journey, Brown says the team will use scientific tools to gather data for climate change and wildlife studies. “We hope to be the first modern-day expedition through the Northwest Passage, and to highlight, you know, what is happening with the environment and the climate. This is the sort of expedition that wouldn’t be, wouldn’t be possible, you know, 50 years ago,” he said. Despite the history of failed attempts to row the passage, South African medic Dr. Daniel Kritzinger says the team is hoping to finish the trip within two months, before the winter ice returns. “There has been a previous attempt in 2013, also trying to row the Northwest Passage, but they were unsuccessful as the ice caught on them,” he said. “So hopefully the ice will stay back enough for us to finish, and to be the first to row the Northwest Passage.” The team is planning another expedition to help them prepare. In June, they will row from England’s Newcastle to Orkney, a much smaller distance than the length of the Arctic Northwest Passage.
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At Least 45 Pilot Whales Die While Beached in Indonesia
Regional officials on the northeastern Indonesian island of Madura said Friday at least 45 pilot whales that stranded themselves on a beach there have died, while rescuers managed to push three back out to sea. East Java Provincial Governor Khofifah Indar Parawansa, who was at the scene, told reporters that volunteers began arriving Thursday when news of the stranding first broke. He said they initially were able to push some of the whales back out to sea, but they returned.The governor said there will be an investigation into the stranding and samples from dead whales will be sent to a regional university for study. He said the rest of the whales will be buried Saturday once the tide recedes and excavators can be used. People try to save a short-finned pilot whale beached in Bangkalan, Madura island, Feb. 19, 2021.There were a series of high-profile pilot whale strandings last year in the south Pacific, including incidents in New Zealand and on the Australian island of Tasmania, where hundreds of whales died. It is not fully understood why the whales beach themselves, but they are known to be highly social and travel in large groups known as pods. They will often follow a leader and sometimes come to the aid of an injured or distressed member of their pod. Whale Stranding Indonesia, a nongovernmental organization, says in 2020 more than 70 marine mammals were found stranded, including dugongs, which are medium-sized marine mammals that are related to manatees.
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